


Hand-me-Down Shapes

by The_Dancing_Walrus



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Family Feels, Family History, Gen, Sort Of Fluff, Swearing, and a West African God, magic artifacts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 06:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10656801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Dancing_Walrus/pseuds/The_Dancing_Walrus
Summary: 'Because it was the ordinary sort of weird. The healing-crystal-chakra, incense-sticks-that-smell-like-socks sort of weird. It felt like (oh come on girl you can think it-) It felt like a white girl thing to be doing, sitting cross legged on the floor with the sock-incense burning trying to summon her mum’s ghost and damn when she thought about it like that it really did come out crazy.'In which Mari tries to use her amulet to discover more about her birth family and finds something she hadn't bargained for.





	Hand-me-Down Shapes

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't find the name of Mari's birth mother. I used an Akan name because Anansi (the God who is apparently responsible for the amulet Vixen uses) *is* an Ashanti God. However given that Zambesi is constructed from elements merrily plucked from all over the African continent......that might not quiet line up with everyone's ideas for the place or canon. Did my best.

It sort of said something that despite the crime fighting, a long-lost sister trying to kill her and a gen-uine magical artefact around her neck Mari still felt like this was the craziest thing she’d ever tried.

 

May be because it was the ordinary sort of weird? The healing-crystal-chakra, incense-sticks-that-smell-like-socks sort of weird. It felt like (oh come on girl you can think it-) It felt like a white girl thing to be doing, sitting cross legged on the floor with the sock-incense burning trying to summon her mum’s ghost and damn when she thought about it like that it really did come out crazy.

 

Which was Dr N Heywood’s stupid fault anyway with his totally unhelpful book on Zambesi mythology. It was _his fault_ for writing something as goddamn leading as ‘- _believed that the Gods and Ancestors could be contacted by meditating with the appropriate totem-’_ , putting the whole stupid idea in Mari’s head.

 

Cos she could _summon the strength of a goddamn elephant_ so may be- May be-

 

Course it could still be crazy. And the hell was she supposed to know how to meditate anyway?

 

The traffic was thick and noisy outside and her feet kept going numb and google was the most unhelpful damn thing when you were trying to figure how to wrangle your ancient mystical potential.

 

Breathe. Clear your mind. Be one with the jungle.

 

‘Cept Mari hadn’t really _been_ to the jungle.

 

Minor point. Breathe. Clear your mind. Think like tall trees and green stuff and shit-

 

Someone leaned on their horn outside. And God it was _stupid_ and it wasn’t working and-

 

It occurred to Mari that Detroit was _her_ jungle.

 

She thought of the heady mix of diesel and garbage breathed deep through a hyena’s nose. The sound of rain on asphalt and the endless chasms the tallest buildings made, channeling the wind and thermals into updrafts under her wings. Glass under eland hooves and-

 

-

 

It was dark when she opened her eyes and the air smelt of wet and rot. An owl’s eyes gave her an outline. Something that shimmered in and out of focus, a man, then a child, big as a horse then small as a rat-

 

“Hello?” Mari called.

 

 **“Child,”** It had a deep, purr of a voice, self-satisfied and assured. **“So long you’ve waited to see me. Are you _shy_ Little-Fox?”**

 

“I heard- I want to know about my mother.” Mari said and heard a clack-clack-clacking like teeth knocked together.

 

**“HMMmm- Would you like to hear a story?”**

 

“A- No I don’t-”

 

**“Shall I start in the old way? Or yours?”**

 

“Look I don’t really-”

 

**“We do not really mean, we do not really mean what we say. Once Upon a Time-”**

 

“I’m not interested in-”

 

**“-there was a girl. In a little village far across the sea. Brave and strong and loved by all the people, then one day-”**

 

“-can you just-”

 

**“-she flew off to fight in a foreign war-”**

 

Mari took a deep breath, fist clenched tight around the fox head of her totem while the voice in the dark babbled about a handsome knight with eyes like the morning sky. The lion felt like all her muscles had been coiled that much tighter, like danger, like prey on the wind-

 

And it had a _damn loud voice_.

 

“ _LOOK MISTER!”_ Mari roared. “ _I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR STUPID STORY!”_

 

She took a deep breath and let the lion go.

 

“I’m only here cos I thought it might help me find out about my Mum.” She said, a little more calmly. “If you don’t know anything that’s…fine. And if you can point me the right way-”

 

The air changed. A dry hot wind swept in wiping away the rot and underneath the dust she could smell-

 

It was musky and a little sour, almost like sweet vinegar. It smelled almost like-

 

 _Spiders_.

 

The shifting shape in the murk laughed. **“Oh Child! So very slow…”**

 

Mari tried to tell herself He wasn’t a God. But she could feel something now, like a trembling through her feet, like she’d been walking on a spider’s web since she got here-

 

And why shouldn’t it be like that? After all that was where the amulet was supposed to come from. The blessing of the Spider God, Lord of Stories-

 

“You’re Anansi?” She asked.

 

 **“Ssshhhhh!”** He said with a chuckle. **“So loud! Everyone will _hear!_ ”**

It sounded like it was supposed to be a joke.

 

Mari shook her head. “Can you tell me about my mother?”

 

 **“HMMMmmmm-”** The sound stretched out and rumbled up through her boots.

 

**“No.”**

 

“No?” Mari snaps and in the dark she sees the brief shining outline of teeth.

 

**“No.”**

 

“ _Why?”_ Mari spits out.

 

Another chuckle shook the web. **“Oh Little-Fox! Mari daughter of Adowa daughter of Amaya, your Mother _bore_ my talisman but your _Grandmother_ -ah- _she used it_.”**

 

The wind shifted again, drowning out the scent of spiders with approaching rain. The world started staining white at the edges-

 

“ _Wait!_ ” Mari protested anchoring herself with an eland, a rhino, an elephant- “What do you mean? What did my grandma do?”

 

The spider’s web hummed and quaked with laughter. **“Find the biggest beast Little-Fox! You shall see-”**

 

“That’s not-” Mari objected but the world was bleeding into a blinding brightness.

 

-

 

When she woke up both her feet were numb and her apartment smelt like burnt sock.

 

Her feet felt like they were stuck full of needles when she stood. Mari hopped around her apartment trying to get the feeling back into them.

 

 _The biggest beast_ -

 

It didn’t make any goddamn sense. But like that stupid line in N. Heywood’s stupid book it stuck in her head-

 

She cleaned up the incense. She opened the windows. She grabbed some dinner and ate it on the couch. She showered.

 

_The biggest beast-_

 

Mari sighed and put her hand on the fox head of her totem. She closed her eyes-

 

He might have meant the elephant but then there didn’t seem like anything special about that. Besides she hadn’t _lost_ the elephant. She’d used the elephant last week when that truck had spun out of control into the shop front.

 

She tried to think ‘bigger’ and heard strains of whale song, felt something like diving and-

 

There was something else-

 

It was harder than the other animals, may be because she didn’t know what it was. It seemed to duck away from Mari’s mind like a quick rat slipping through careless fingers.

 

Holding it felt like grabbing a fistful of feathers.

 

And then she had it, dragged it out through the amulet and-

 

The creature reared over her, big as a building, so high it made Mari’s head reel. She could feel it’s, _her_ , huge powerful legs, eyes like a hawk’s and jaws that could rip through _tanks_.

 

Mari looked up and saw the ghost of a dinosaur towering above her, heard the echo of it’s roar.

 

Mari took a deep breath and let her hand drop away from the amulet. It took a while to ease back down, to feel like her own size again.

 

She went through the motions of getting ready for bed. She lay down and stared at the ceiling.

 

Her birth name was Mari Jiwe. Her mother was from Zambesi. Aaaand at some point her grandma had met dinosaurs.

 

“Holy shit Grandma,” Mari murmured to no one in particular. “What the hell did you _do?_ ”

 


End file.
